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Topics Overview Overview Agents Quickstart Editor Tutorial Intro Videos Overview Get started Agents Quickstart Agents Tutorial Best Practices Concepts Agents Agent Harnesses Language Models Context Tools Sessions & Handoff Agent Host Architecture Customization Workspace Context Trust & Safety Run agents Agents Window Chat View Choose an Agent Harness Use Tools Browser Tools Approvals & Permissions Review & Revert Changes Artifacts Remote Agent Sessions Plan Work Memory Subagents Sessions Manage Sessions Session History AI Security Customize agents Create and Manage Instructions Agent Skills Custom Agents Language Models MCP Hooks Plugins Tools Prompt Files Use chat Chat Basics Inline & Quick Chat Add Prompt Context Tutorials & guides Customize AI Context Engineering Test-Driven Development Test with AI Test Web Apps with Browser Tools Debug with AI Edit Notebooks with AI Optimize AI Credit Usage MCP Dev Guide Prompt Examples Reference Cheat Sheet Settings Reference MCP Configuration Hooks Reference OpenTelemetry Monitoring Troubleshooting Troubleshooting Debug Chat Interactions Diagnose Prompt Caching FAQ Editor Overview Quickstart Repositories & Remotes Staging & Committing Source Control History Branches & Worktrees Merge Conflicts Collaborate on GitHub Troubleshooting FAQ Get Started Terminal Basics Terminal Profiles Shell Integration Appearance Advanced Debugging Debug Configuration Tasks Testing Integrated Browser Port Forwarding Guides & Tutorials Test-Driven Development Test Web Apps with Browser Tools Overview Enterprise Policies AI Settings Extensions Telemetry Updates Overview VS Code for the Web SSH SSH Tutorial Tunnels Dev Containers WSL WSL Tutorial GitHub Codespaces VS Code Server Linux Prerequisites Tips and Tricks FAQ GitHub Copilot Setup Linux macOS Windows Raspberry Pi Network Portable Mode Additional Components Uninstall Languages & Runtimes Extension Docs

Additional components and tools

Visual Studio Code is a small download by design and only includes the minimum number of components shared across most development workflows. Basic functionality like the editor, file management, window management, and preference settings are included. A JavaScript/TypeScript language service and Node.js debugger are also part of the base install.

If you are used to working with larger, monolithic development tools (IDEs), you may be surprised that your scenarios aren't completely supported out of the box. For example, there isn't a File > New Project dialog with pre-installed project templates. Most VS Code users will need to install additional components depending on their specific needs.

Commonly used components

Here are a few commonly installed components:

Git - VS Code has built-in support for source code control using Git but requires Git to be installed separately.
Node.js (includes npm) - A cross platform runtime for building and running JavaScript applications.
TypeScript - The TypeScript compiler, tsc, for transpiling TypeScript to JavaScript.

You'll find the components above mentioned often in our documentation and walkthroughs.

VS Code extensions

You can extend the VS Code editor itself through extensions. The VS Code community has built thousands of useful extensions available on the VS Code Marketplace.

The following list shows some of the popular extensions in the VS Code Marketplace. Select an extension tile to view the extension details.

Additional tools

Visual Studio Code integrates with existing tool chains. We think the following tools will enhance your development experiences.

Yeoman - An application scaffolding tool, a command line version of File > New Project.
generator-hottowel - A Yeoman generator for quickly creating AngularJS applications.
Express - An application framework for Node.js applications using the Pug template engine.
Gulp - A streaming task runner system which integrates easily with VS Code tasks.
Mocha - A JavaScript test framework that runs on Node.js.
Yarn - A dependency manager and alternative to npm.

Note: Most of these tools require Node.js and the npm package manager to install and use.

Next steps

User Interface - A quick orientation around VS Code.
User/Workspace Settings - Learn how to configure VS Code to your preferences through settings.
Languages - VS Code supports many programming languages out-of-the-box as well as many more through community created extensions.

8/19/2026